I have been working on collecting data for this image for several months. The aim was to obtain an image which not only showed the galaxies in detail but the galactic cirrus too. At this point with a little over 7.5 hours and as pointed out by Mike below there is no cirrus in the area. Perhaps it is a gradient. Although it might just be dust and gas between us and the star. (edit added later)
Overall I am pretty happy with the look of the image but I want to get another 5 or so hours yet to complete the image.
Lovely shot Paul, really nice galaxy detail.
I saw a recent shot, with a DSLR and 200/2, and boy oh boy, the tidal tail from the edge on was fantastic. Mind you it was something like 26 hours of capture!!.
Great shot.
Gary
Nice looking Leo trio Paul, some good detail in the galaxies for a little scope love the nicely saturated colours and the strong blue too
That's not galactic cirrus though...a star doesn't illuminate galactic cirrus, it hovers above the Milky Way and is illuminated by the Milky Way as a whole and generally shows structure rather than being a vague glow. I think the GC in that area is ultra faint too (or non existent even?) can't find an image that shows it in that area. What you have there looks more like a gradient, possibly some cloud (doubt that) or just your processing, maybe less than optimal flats..?
You can make out the tidal stream coming off NGC 3268 though so that's pretty cool
Mike you are right. Was not thinking when I did this last night. A star in our galaxy cannot illuminate dust outside it. Derr. I am not sure it is a gradient though. It is in an odd shape in the Blue and Lum frames and much more obvious when stretched right out. There is some faint light pollution towards that part of the sky eminating from Adelaide so that may be the source. Although in a search on the net there are a lot of images with that blue around the blue star and surrounds. In any event my original statement was completely wrong and thanks for pointing that out.
That's coming along nicely Paul. Lovely colour and exquisite detail for a 4". That fine detail's a tribute to your great tracking and super steady skies. I still find the levels of the background to be on the low side. A small boost in Shadows and Highlights brings it up and makes the tidal tail of NGC 3628 more obvious. Also increases the number of background stars.
Thanks guys, I really appreciate the positive comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rigel003
That's coming along nicely Paul. Lovely colour and exquisite detail for a 4". That fine detail's a tribute to your great tracking and super steady skies. I still find the levels of the background to be on the low side. A small boost in Shadows and Highlights brings it up and makes the tidal tail of NGC 3628 more obvious. Also increases the number of background stars.
I knew you would say that Graeme. I do wonder though if our monitors are showing things differently. I also think it might be time to consider an AO unit for this system. With the good seeing I get down there I should really try to improve the images even more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
Beautiful Paul! Great colour and detail!
You could probably get away with rendering the faint halos around all three and the tidal stream near 3628 a bit more if you wanted.
Cheers, Marcus
Do you think it needs more time to make that possible though Marcus? Or perhaps deeper subs?
